Jordan Peterson's IQ Score: Undisclosed

Jordan Peterson has never disclosed his IQ. Numbers that circulate online are uncited, and he has declined to state a figure, so there is no Jordan Peterson IQ on record.

Fairview, Alberta, 1962–1985

A small prairie town and a Cold War question

Born in Edmonton in 1962 and raised in the small northern Alberta town of Fairview, Peterson was a keen debater and reader as a teenager. He has said his fascination with how ordinary people come to commit atrocities began then, with the nuclear standoff of the Cold War.

From a prairie college to a clinical PhD

Fourteen years of study, drawn to scale: bar length is time spent at each stage, 1975–1994.

19751980198519901994

Fairview High School

Active debater; worked summers at a local job and read widely.

1970s

Grande Prairie Regional College

First post-secondary study, in political science.

1979–80

University of Alberta, BA

Political science.

1982

University of Alberta, BA

Psychology.

1984

McGill University, PhD

Clinical psychology, supervised by Robert Pihl; research on alcoholism and aggression.

1991

McGill postdoctoral fellowship

At the Douglas Hospital, before Harvard hired him.

1991–93

The career, as a course syllabus

Four decades of teaching, research and public argument.

PSY 2011993–1998

Harvard

Assistant and then associate professor of psychology.

PSY 3011998–2021

University of Toronto

Professor and clinical psychologist; later professor emeritus.

PSY 4011999

Maps of Meaning

His first book, on myth, belief and the psychology of meaning.

PSY 5012016

The public debate

YouTube lectures opposing compelled speech under Canada's Bill C-16 make him internationally known, and deeply polarising.

PSY 6012018–2021

12 Rules for Life, Beyond Order

Self-help bestsellers selling millions of copies, followed by global tours.

His research area

IQ is one axis. Personality is five more.

Much of Peterson's academic work is on the Big Five personality traits and how they predict outcomes alongside intelligence. Move the sliders: the profile changes, but the IQ bar doesn't move: they are measured separately.

Highest trait in this profile: Openness. The IQ row stays blank, personality scores say nothing about it.

Openness70Conscientiousness60Extraversion50Agreeableness40Neuroticism45

IQ?

Everything he's made, on one shelf

Book · 2018

12 Rules for Life

A self-help book mixing psychology, myth and personal story; one of the best-selling non-fiction books of its year.

Lecture notes: why he won't give a number

Peterson talks about IQ as one of the most robust findings in psychology, a strong predictor of school and job performance. That makes his refusal to share his own score notable, and it has fuelled guesses online.

But a public figure declining to disclose a test result is not evidence of anything. Clinicians rarely publish their own scores, and a number from a psychologist about himself would still need the test, the date and the scoring to mean something.

The numbers that circulate, usually in the 150s, come with none of that. They are estimates from his credentials and debating style, which is exactly the kind of reverse inference he criticises when others make it.

What is documented: a Harvard faculty post, a long University of Toronto career, well-cited personality research and books that sold in the millions. Impressive, and still not an IQ.